Objective: To investigate the association between fish and n–3 polyunsaturated fatty acid consumption and pancreatic cancer risk in a population based, prospective study in Japanese men and women.

Background

Pancreatic cancer is a very difficult disease to diagnose and treat because by the time you become symptomatic and are diagnosed, you often have a highly aggressive and potentially metastatic disease. The best treatment is prevention!

Known risk factors for developing pancreatic cancer include:

Tobacco use

Obesity

Diabetes

Chronic pancreatitis

The influence of diet has been researched but there are no convincing evidence that certain food types increase or decrease your risk of pancreatic cancer.

n–3 polyunsaturated fatty acids are known to have a wide variety of health benefits including reduced risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes. It would be helpful to know if these benefits extend to reduction in pancreatic cancer risk.

Methods

The authors used The Japan Public Health Center–based Prospective Study (JPHC study), which has enrolled 140,420 subjects.

They analyzed data on 82,024 eligible participants aged 45–74 y without a history of cancer who responded to a validated food-frequency questionnaire.